By Ranjona Banerji
The story of the day, on Tuesday, January 3, as far as the media is concerned is the front page expose by The Indian Express, headlined: “Meant for ‘distressed’, Orissa plot quota goes to babus, judges, journalistsâ€. The strap below reads: “Row leads to CM scrapping discretionary land or house allotments last monthâ€.
The upshot is that a system of patronage was established in 1985 by the JB Patnaik government to allot houses or land for “the dependent of a person who has made a supreme sacrifice for the nation, but has not been properly rehabilitated so far; member of a family who has been a victim of unforeseen circumstances (terrorist attack, earthquake, flood etc); physically handicapped person…†The categories go on to include police, military, paramilitary and government employees permanently disabled on duty, the families of those who lost their lives in abnormal circumstances as well as eminent professionals, sportspeople, artists, literary figures and women of “high achievement in distress’ and individual cases of extreme hardship.
After this, the beneficiaries appear to have been ministers, bureaucrats, judges and journalists. A scandal where a minister okayed the allotment of two houses to the family of another led Naveen Patnaik to abolish this discretionary quota.
The story, does not tell us how many distressed, disabled people in extreme hardship actually got any land or houses, but it does list the journalists who benefited.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/meant-for-distressed-orissa-plot-quota-goes-to-babus-judges-journalists/895060/
This raises a very serious question for journalists everywhere, many of whom have profited under similar schemes elsewhere in the country. The Express story, while naming benefiting politicians and so on has broken the covenant of silence on journalistic transgressions by printing the names of the lucky journalists and the minister under whose discretion they got so lucky. The names belong to several media houses and some are familiar.
One journalist has defended his allotment, pointing out that when he got his plot in 1997, the scheme was legal. He also said that other journalists had lied that they had no other properties – a requirement of this lucky dip system.
The question here is of something else. To what extent can journalists be objective in their reporting/covering/editing/commenting on government affairs if they benefit from government schemes and awards? Does acceptance of such largesse come under the tag of corruption or just luck? Is objecting to such acceptance an expression of self-righteousness or sour grapes?
The profession of journalism has been under the scanner recently for a number of not very salubrious reasons. This is one more criticism which ought to stick. Paid news campaigns as orchestrated by media houses is totally reprehensible. But so is the custom of individual journalists accepting what cannot be called gifts but will have to be seen as bribes which compromise not only their integrity but that of all their fellows.
The Indian Express has done the profession a great service by printing the names of journalists who are beneficiaries. If we are to fight both media corruption and paid news, then the only way is for us to become each other’s watchdogs. We cannot be sanctimonious about everyone else but ignore our own transgressions.
The way The Hindu exposed the Hindustan Times on its story on infant gender changes in Indore or The Guardian has been relentlessly attacking News of the World and others on phone-hacking, is it time for Indian journalists to stop applying the discretionary quota to each other?